


Fix Me

by lactoria



Category: Trigun
Genre: Angst, Hurt/Comfort, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-06
Updated: 2017-01-06
Packaged: 2018-09-15 04:44:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 608
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9219518
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lactoria/pseuds/lactoria
Summary: Wolfwood cries in his sleep...





	

Wolfwood cries in his sleep.  It’s not a nightly occurrence, but it happens often enough that Vash can no longer lay beside him, back turned, and pretend he doesn’t hear it.  There’s only so much he can stand, only so much ignorance he can feign, before it makes its home under his skin.  Wolfwood’s whimpering sobs are arrows–or more aptly bullets–right through his heart.  He doesn’t even think Wolfwood knows; the few times his nightmares have wrenched him awake, he rolled right back over and returned to the only place he went that Vash could not follow.  He’s not sure if Wolfwood, too, is pretending it doesn’t happen, so accustomed to his night terrors–to the smothering darkness in and out of his mind–that he doesn’t think it worth acknowledging. 

And Vash wouldn’t blame him.  Wolfwood has seen and endured unimaginable horrors, danced with the devil until his feet bled and snuffed out more lives than cigarettes.

His spirit is tangled up in marionette strings hung over the fate of those he loves, over anything he cares about.  It’s a sadistic web of barb wire meant to cut no matter which way he moves.  Vash wishes to God he’d met Wolfwood sooner, then maybe he could have–

Could have what?  _Saved him?_ Very little can truly enrage Vash, but when he thinks about what this _boy_ has been subjected to all for the furtherance of his brother’s genocidal scheme, his blood boils.

He’s caught in the crossfire because of him.  So many people are…

Nicholas tosses restlessly beside him, catapulting him out of his own dead-end thoughts.  Sharing beds is much more cost effective, and he won’t say he doesn’t like the warmth and comfort of another body.  But the bed is much too small for this much activity.  Must be another bad dream.  Vash compacts himself on his side facing Wolfwood and gently pets his hair, light in his touches, to soothe rather than suppress.

“You’re okay,” he whispers over and over, like a mantra, hoping that somewhere deep down under Wolfwood can hear him and feel the sentiment.  When he whimpers, it nearly breaks Vash’s heart.

Eventually those whimpers tear his lips open with a scream, and suddenly he’s got an armful of Nicholas, sobbing fitfully into his shoulder and clinging to him for dear life.

“ _Why._..”

“Why…?”

This boy turned man turned priest turned assassin blubbers for words, gropes blindly at Vash, and he’s positive Wolfwood isn’t quite _back_ yet.  His ragged breath puffing over Vash’s neck indicates him lifting his head, his eyes wild and glinting with tears his voice shaking  He can barely see him in a room lit only by a sliver of moonlight through the crack in the curtains, but he can feel his breath over his neck and catch the glint of tears in wild, unfocused eyes.

“Why can’t you _fix me_?”  In the smallest voice he’s ever heard from him, Wolfwood, his strong unflinching companion, begs like a child.

Vash’s heart shatters in his ears.

So many things he wants to say, so many promises he wants to make, and yet all he can bear to say is _sorry, I’m so sorry._ The weight of his guilt settles on him to remind him there’s no amount of remorse that could ever be enough to atone for his own sins.  But maybe if he holds him tight enough he’ll be able to squeeze out his anguish.  And maybe tomorrow he will have forgotten this like another bad dream, or he’ll bury this memory six feet under while Vash grieves the heavy, unexplainable loss in silence.

“ _I’m sorry_.”


End file.
